Does anything rhyme with guava? The topic of fruit seriously lends itself to rhyming and yet there are so many that have no rhyming words. You can grapple with apple but orange is just borange. See? I can’t communicate strongly enough how much this annoys me. How am I supposed to be cute and clever working with words like guava? I guess I could shorten it. Guav are mauve. Except they’re not. Or “Don’t jump in the lava. Eat a guava!” A new tag line for Hawaii perhaps.

So I tried this not-mauv guav a few weeks ago and was surprised by how much I liked it. Guava flavored things are generally pretty great as is guava nectar. But most fresh guava are way too acidic for me. If you let them ripen extra long, they do sweeten up but it can be hard to tell. Plus you have to rely on the farmer to do this and that’s kind of a crap shoot in my experience. I tried quite a few of these though and they were all pretty good (minus the ubiquitous, rock hard BB gun pellets passing themselves off as seeds). And it seems like a good sign when research shows that growing this variety is a favorite of rare fruit fanciers (whatever that is). I hope I’m one! But I doubt it since I don’t grow anything except a little mold in the fridge when my fruit buying habit gets out of control.

White Indian Guava

APPEARANCE Rating:

Smooth, muted chartreuse skin, with gorgeous peach flesh.

AROMA Rating:

Extremely pungent, tropical fragrance that fills the room with the smell of pineapple and banana.

TEXTURE Rating:

Flesh is soft and melting somewhat like slightly fibrous pudding. Gritty skin reminiscent of pears and an overwhelming amount of annoyingly hard seeds.

TASTE Rating:

Delightfully mild and sweet. Not overly acidic. Reminds me of an exotic creamy banana mixed with a sweet tangerine. Very well balanced.

OVERALL Overall Rating:

This is my new favorite type of guava. I just need to figure out how to strain out those seeds and I’ll be all set. If you come across this type, be sure to snatch a batch.

FRUIT Guava	PEAK Winter/Spring	PURCHASED n/a
VARIETY White Indian	GROWN California

OTHER NONSENSE

I like to rhyme. I do it all the time. Especially when I’m feeling sublime from finding a lime. At times I share my lime with a mime so he can use it to clean the grime from his dimes. Sometimes.